Monday Marketing and Wednesday Weirdness

Eight years ago, when my Social-Butterfly was born, my mom gave me a copy of  Jonni McCoy's Miserly Moms.  During my early days of motherhood, with numerous hours to spend holding and nursing a newborn, I devoured that book.  Unfortunately, I really didn't practice much of what she wrote....but I read it with a great deal of intensity, always thinking that "some day" I would put what she wrote into practice.

Now, eight years later, that day has come.  I know, I'm a bit slow at times, but it's hard to make the effort to be miserly when you don't *need* to be...at least it is for me.  I'm not naturally a miserly person.

Anyway, there are two major tips she wrote, that have stuck out in  my mind and that I now am making a great deal of effort to put into practice.  (these are paraphrased)

1) Never do all your grocery shopping at one store, shop around and compare prices.
2)  Never buy already made items that you can make yourself.

Number one is a bit difficult for me, as I really don't like shopping.  Let me rephrase that,  when I have all my darling offspring with me, I'd rather stick my eyes out with a fork then take them all into a store.  Even without children with me, shopping is still not my number one choice of activity, far, far from it.   Yet, it needs to be done, and although I hate the actual shopping for food, I LOVE food and generally don't trust anyone else to get the "right stuff"  So, hi ho, hi ho...it's off to the market I go.

So, this past Monday was my big grocery shopping day.  For the first time  ever I attempted going to three different stores, to get different items.   Now, let me clarify that where I live, shopping choices are rather limited....we have the regular mainstream grocery stores (Shaw's and Stop&Shop), the wholesale buyer's club (BJ's) of which we are a member and a couple of small, locally run, wonderful but naturally very pricey health food stores.   There are no big  health food stores like Trader Jo's or Whole Foods, nor are there any really inexpensive options like PriceRite, Aldi's or SuperWalmart.

Anyway, first stop was the local Shaw's.   I did pretty good there, didn't spend too much (around $119.00...which considering I hadn't been grocery shopping in around 2 weeks is pretty good).  I bought things like oranges, dried chickpeas, Breyer's Ice Cream (on sale, and we need our Sunday "treat" of course), whole-milk yogurt, organic tomato sauce (with coupon and sale), a small bag of sucanat (with coupon), ground beef (hormone/antibiotic free type with store-coupons...but unfortunately grain-fed I'm sure), organic chicken sausage (again with the store-coupons stuck on it), avocados (on sale)  and probably a few other items I'm forgetting.

However, here is where the weirdness comes in:  The Pater Familas took an orange in his lunch today.  A totally regular, orange-colored orange.  Except the inside looked like this:

I've heard of blood oranges before, but never actually seen one. Thankfully, co-workers of the Pater Familias were able to reassure him that this orange is the result of accidental cross-pollination with a different variety and not a deadly-poisoned piece of fruit.   I actually worked up the nerve to eat a bite of  it and it was pretty good, a bit sweeter than a regular orange actually. 

Anyway, moral of the story, ALWAYS save your grocery store receipts.  You never know when something "weird" might happen.  After all, opening up an orange you expect to be well...orange.. and seeing red is quite disconcerting.

Well, back to the shopping-trip. Next stop was a quick run into BJ's...the local whole-sale club.  There I picked up eggs, honey,  butter, two large tubs of organic lettuce and one of organic spinach, and organic carrots.  I've dicovered that those items generally are cheaper when you buy in bulk, so that is where I go.  The total came to around $42.00....which is the least amount I've EVER spent there.

Last stop, was the local health food store to get whole milk which is low-pasturized and from the local dairy. Maybe it's not as good as raw milk, but it's the best I can do without driving all over creation.  I also picked up some gluten-free wraps, organic ketchup,  dried lentils from the bulk bin and unsweetened carob chips from the bulk bin (I actually like carob...it's not quite chocolate, but it's pretty good in it's own way).  Total spent...around $34.00.

Total shopping for Monday....approximatly $195.00. I was pretty pleased with that, considering I hadn't been to the store in about 2 weeks.  A year ago at this time, I easily spent over $200/week....quite easily, so this is a good improvement.  I still have a ways to go yet,,,but I'm working on it.

I believe that most of that improvement comes from following Miserly Mom rule #2...but that's a post for another day.

So, I think I did pretty good with Miserly Mom rule #1.   I don't enjoy stopping at different stores...but I survived.  I think I could even make a habit of this "shopping around" thing.